Zookeepers bare their souls to inform visitors

A heartfelt obituary remembering Laoma, a deceased sun bear, has made national headlines in China.

Put up earlier this year in the Hongshan Forest Zoo in Nanjing, the capital of East China's Jiangsu province, the obituary detailed the last days of the male bear's 33-year life and the interactions between the animal and the keepers at the zoo.

"Since the beginning of winter in 2022, the bear's food intake decreased, and he often slept for entire days. In order to help him survive the winter, the keepers and the vets provided a warm straw nest for him and heated up his favorite vegetable mush," reads the obituary.

Guo Chenxu, the bear's zookeeper, penned the piece. His handwriting was neat and clear, an excellent match with his aspiration to treat animals with care and dignity.

"We still remember when Laoma first entered the outer field of the bear house. It was a beautiful sunny spring. He sat next to the flowers and looked up at the butterflies. The warm wind blew from the city, quietly accompanying Laoma," Guo writes.

These sentimental words went viral on social media and were reposted by multiple Chinese news outlets, where people are used to reading zoo reports mostly about newborn animals and imports of exotic species.

In the past, the public rarely had a chance to see how zoos recorded and released news of the passing of resident animals, especially the noncelebrity ones. They passed away invisibly and silently.

But now, Laoma is very much known to the world.

Guo hung the obituary outside the bear house the day after Laoma died. The animal passed away while sleeping on Dec 31. Most sun bears have a life expectancy of around 20 years. Laoma reached 33, which is equivalent to 100 years of human life.

Writing obituaries has become a routine for Guo's colleagues to express mourning for their deceased animal friends. In September 2020, the zoo wrote one for a river deer called Zijin, saying the animal had a friendly, calm and cooperative personality, and "always took the lead in eating when meals were served".

Recounting the details of an animal's life is a crucial comfort for the keepers to get through their grief.

"We, zookeepers, are used to dealing with death, too," say Peng Peila, the first one to write obituaries for the deceased animals at the zoo.

On the death notice for the deer, Peng wrote that Zijin will be missed, but not forgotten. "We will always cherish the time we spent together."

She sees the autopsy of the animals as their final message, from which their keepers can learn how to provide better care for the surviving animals at the zoo.

Like an organ donation from an accident victim, or the body of a patient donated for cancer research, death sometimes has a silver lining. The same is true at the zoo.

"Although Laoma has left us, we will adopt his attitude toward life, constantly improve ourselves with gratitude and take good care of every life," the obituary continues.

In another widely shared obituary released in October by the Xining Wildlife Park in the northwestern province of Qinghai, the zookeepers paid tribute to a deceased Pallas's cat: "Though (it) neither enjoyed the wilderness, nor breathed the air on the plateau, Sunsimiao (the cat's name) used his life to let us humans learn about, understand and take better care of the species."

China's only captive male Pallas's cat, the deceased animal, also provided an immortal monument in the study of the artificial breeding of the species, the obituary notes.

The memorial soon became the cause of an online discussion, with many giving the zoo a thumbs-up, saying that the obituary reflected the keepers' respect for every life, while others questioned the zoo's methods after learning the cat had died after choking on chicken while eating.

The park replied in a statement that it would review the incident and reassess the risks in its current breeding management program.

The media whirlwind hasn't deterred the zookeepers. They continue to write memorials for their deceased friends. The latest death notice posted by the Hongshan Forest Zoo was for a bird, which was rescued from the wild by the zookeepers, but died in February after being caged with other species. "This is a warning about the safety of mixing animals in small spaces. How to reduce the risk needs our professional and continuous assessment and attention," says the obituary, which is still on display at the zoo.

Peng says it is a keeper's responsibility to inform visitors about the deaths of animals that were once kept at the zoo for exhibition.

Celebrity animals, such as pandas, koalas and meerkats, draw more attention from tourists, but most animals live in anonymity, without fans coming specifically to see them, Peng says.

The death notices make people aware of the existence of more zoo animals.

Peng still remembers the scene two years ago, when she saw some kids reading the obituary of a boar, word-by-word with the help of their parents. Several months later, she was surprised, and moved, to find a small white chrysanthemum attached to the notice.

Xinhua